: Re: Are "non-readers" useful beta readers? In my opinion, the best beta readers are fellow writers, partly because they may have insight others don't, but partly also because you can agree to trade

This depends on what you, and the prospective reader, mean when you say "non-reader" do you mean someone like Person A who enjoys a good tale of derring-do but rarely has the time to crack a book to get at them or do you mean someone like Person B who never reads anything, including his required textbooks and failed English at multiple levels during his education. Person A is a good sounding board for ideas and has enough formal training in written English that if he can find time he's a decent beta-reader across concept, content, and technical/stylistic issues. Person B will give you a scathing look and trash bin anything you put in front of him that doesn't have a movie, or computer game, level of graphic content.

These are not random examples either, I know these two people personally and have gone through various different levels of schooling with them. People who don't read a lot but have a few pieces they're passionate about, I know a couple of people who only read JRR Tolkien for example, and otherwise don't go to the effort of reading because for them it's very hard work can be incredibly useful if you're working in the style they love, if not they can potentially be very damaging as they try to push your work into their comfort zone.

My advice is to generally be very discerning with your beta-readers, each should fulfill a particular role, or roles, in your writing and editing process from generating and molding basic ideas to finalising manuscript format to send to the editor.

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: Re: Are "non-readers" useful beta readers? In my opinion, the best beta readers are fellow writers, partly because they may have insight others don't, but partly also because you can agree to trade

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